We’re Mapping the E-Commerce Partner Ecosystem

When you create your Ideal Customer Profile, what does it look like? And once you align with your partners on the right one, what happens next?

At Crossbeam, we’ve heard from partner professionals that they wish they had a “map”, something to guide them as they entered new markets and explored new categories of customer. Which is why we’re pleased to announce our new “Vertical Report” series: A visual map of major software categories to help you plan your partner program roll-out.

First up: E-commerce.

About this data

Assembled by Crossbeam’s Gary Pershad and mapped by Matt Nicosia, each Vertical Report is powered by Partnerbase, the world’s largest database of partnerships. Partnerbase is an in-progress mapping of how companies are connected via partnerships. Explore the entire ecosystem at Partnerbase.com. 

Partnerships are “mapped” by following declared partnerships on either side’s publicly-facing website. For example, if Facebook lists MailChimp as a partner, those two companies are connected on our “map” and their respective partner counts increased by one. It should be noted, there are several things to note with this kind of data collection:

• Massive (200+) ecosystems may be underrepresented as the depth of our mapping is still in progress.
• Smaller nodes (<25 partners) are unlabeled in the map below, but they do add to company partnership totals.
• In some cases, the number of mappable partnerships may not match a companies publicly shared number of partnerships. This can be attributed to a company sharing outdated or inflated partner counts or our in-progress mapping not yet counting the long tail of their ecosystem. 
• These numbers were collected in Q1 and Q2 2020. Some mapped partnerships may not be active. Conversely, recent partnerships may not be reflected in the map.

Below, we grouped the partner ecosystems into four tiers. We then highlighted notable partners and listed the types of partnerships.

As you can see in the above map, several “supernodes” emerge with clusters of other strong ecosystems dotting the landscape. Once you know the goals of your partner program, you can then start to map the proper way to expand your ecosystem. 

Below, we map the companies into two groups each with its own tiers:  

• Actual E-Commerce Platforms
  • “The Big Dogs”
  • “The Must-Have Add-ons” 
  • “The Niche Players” 
• Non-E-Commerce Platforms w/ Influence 

 

Actual E-Commerce Platforms

This section is about companies that are serving e-commerce business and customers. This means that their primary use case is to facilitate the selling of goods and services online.

“The Big Dogs” 

These are the giants of the space, the super nodes, the indispensable ecosystems. 

Shopify – 378 partners

• Description: Shopify is a cloud-based, multi-channel commerce platform designed for small and medium-sized businesses.
• Notable Partners: Oracle, Facebook, Looker, Zoho CRM
• Types of Partnerships: Channel, Technology

 

WooCommerce – 113 partners

• Description: WooCommerce is a customizable e-commerce platform for building online businesses.
• Notable Partners: Google, Facebook, MailChimp, Square
• Types of Partnerships: Channel, Technology, Agency

 

BigCommerce – 607 partners 

• Description: BigCommerce is a global, cloud e-commerce platform for B2B and B2C companies.
• Notable Partners: Paypal, Zapier, Stripe, Square
• Types of Partnerships: Channel, Technology, Agency

 

Magento – 389 partners

• Description: Magento is a cloud commerce platform with an open-sourced ecosystem with solutions to modern-day B2B, B2C, and hybrid commerce problems.
• Notable Partners: Paypal, Zapier, Amazon Web Services
• Types of Partnerships: Channel, Technology, Agency

 

“The Must-Have Add-ons”

Not e-commerce platforms, but the essential services that help e-commerce providers operate. You’ll notice payment solutions, shipping solutions, and other nuts-and-bolts services that online businesses depend on.

Stripe – 527 partners

• Description: Stripe is a global tech company in the commerce world focused on the exchange of mobile and web payments.
• Notable Partners: Squarespace, Magento, Drupal
• Types of Partnerships: Channel, Technology
  

Paypal – 242 partners

• Description: Paypal is a global online payment solution. It allows customers to receive money in over 100 different currencies.
• Notable Partners: Zapier, Shopify, Shipstation, Freshdesk
• Types of Partnerships: Strategic, Channel, Technology, Agency
  
  

Authorize.Net – 355 partners

• Description: Authorize enables customers to accept credit cards, contactless payments, and e-checks in person and on the go.
• Notable Partners: Big Commerce, WooCommerce, Shopify
• Types of Partnerships: Channel, Technology

 

Square – 150 partners

• Description: Mobile payment company that simplifies e-commerce with the use of technology.
• Notable Partners: WordPress, Pinterest, Magento, BigCommerce
• Types of Partnerships: Channel, Technology

 

Shipstation – 293 partners

• Description: Shipstation helps eCommerce merchants create shipping labels and fulfill products.
• Notable Partners: Shopify, BigCommerce, Zendesk
• Types of Partnerships: Channel, Technology, Agency

 

Signifyd Inc. – 76 partners

• Description: Signifyd provides fraud technology for e-commerce stores.
• Notable Partners: Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce, Tray.io
• Types of Partnerships: Channel, Technology, Agency

 

Sendhub – 491 partners

• Description: Sendhub is a global business phone system and enhances the ability of telecommunications.
• Notable Partners: Shopify, Magento, AWeber, Mircosoft
• Types of Partnerships: Technology, Agency

 

WordPress – 158 partners

• Description: WordPress is a web publishing software that can be used to create websites.
• Notable Partners: Dropbox, Amazon, Intercom, Zapier
• Types of Partnerships: Technology, Channel, Strategic 

 

Intercom – 233 partners

• Description: Intercom is a business messenger that allows users to drive growth throughout all stages of the product life cycle and nurture relationships with customers.
• Notable Partners: Slack, Twitter, Facebook, MailChimp
• Types of Partnerships: Technology, Agency

 

“The Niche Players” 

A mix of platforms and services, these are ecosystems on the rise. 

2Checkout – 72 partners

• Description: 2Checkout is a global monetization platform that provides solutions to modern commerce problems like subscription building, merchandising, and taxes.
• Notable Partners: HubSpot, Salesforce Marketo, Shopify
• Types of Partnerships: Strategic, Channel, Technology, Agency

 

Chargebee – 65 partners

• Description: Chargebee provides subscription and recurring billing systems for SaaS and subscription-based e-commerce companies.
• Notable Partners: Zendesk, Stripe, Intercom
• Types of Partnerships: Technology, Agency

 

3dCart – 59 partners

• Description: 3dcart is an e-commerce solution for online businesses.
• Notable Partners: Zapier, Google, Square, Okta, MailChimp
• Types of Partnerships: Technology

 

Miva – 39 partners

• Description: Miva is a digital media company that offers e-commerce solutions to small and medium-sized companies.
• Notable Partners: MailChimp, Shipstation, Paypal, Square
• Types of Partnerships: Technology, Agency

 

Ecwid – 24 partners

• Description: Ecwid is an e-commerce platform tailored for small businesses.
• Notable Partners: Stripe, Paypal, AWeber, MailChimp
• Types of Partnerships: Technology, Agency

 

PrestaShop – 56 partners

• Description: PrestaShop is an opensource eCommerce platform with more than 300,000 stores worldwide. (Primarily in Europe)
• Notable Partners: Shipstation, AWeber, MailChimp, 2Checkout
• Types of Partnerships: Technology, Agency, Channel

Non-E-Commerce Platforms With Influence

These companies are your usual supernodes in most partner ecosystems, but they are worth calling out here.

Salesforce – 1,659 partners

• Description: Salesforce is an international cloud computing platform that provides CRM solutions and business. (Note: While Salesforce does offer an e-commerce cloud, Partnerbase makes no distinction, yet, over which cloud service is the source of a partnership. For that reason, we’re categorizing Salesforce as “non-e-commerce”.)
• Notable Partners: Adobe, Dropbox, Intercom, AWeber
• Types of Partnerships: Strategic, Channel, Technology, Agency

 

Slack – 1,146 partners

• Description: Slack is a communications software that allows companies of all sizes to communicate remotely.
• Notable Partners: Zoho CRM, Facebook, Stripe, SAP
• Types of Partnerships: Channel, Technology

 

Facebook – 305 partners

• Description: Facebook is an online social networking platform.
• Notable Partners: Stripe, Intercom, Shopify, HubSpot
• Types of Partnerships: Strategic, Channel, Technology, Agency

 

HubSpot – 2,017 partners

• Description: HubSpot is an inbound marketing software that modernizes email marketing, blogging, SEO and marketing automation.
• Notable Partners: Linkedin, Amazon Web Services, Facebook, Tealium
• Types of Partnerships: Strategic, Channel, Technology, Agency

 

AWeber – 488 partners

• Description: AWeber provides email marketing software that includes newsletters emailing, auto-responding, and RSS-to-email converting features